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Huraghk
Rare, almost extinct DimIrian species mythologically descended from one of the seven daughters of Cre-oten. Ah yes, little one....come here, here by my side. ‘Neath my wing, you’ve had your fill, and now it is time to go to sleep. For my Rider did you leave milk, you greedy fawn? Good then. Settle down, lay your head upon my leg... A story! you cry. A story for sleep, to send you to. A story indeed... I shall tell you the story of Mithral, the greediest fawn ever to chew a teat, my wheegraebe, my fawn... The story of Mithral, the Fourth Daughter. Listen child. This is a tale of Mithral, whom her Dam Creoten called the DugChewer, HockBiter, TeatStealer. When Mithral was weaned and grew old, when she had borne fawns of her own, they called her The LongTailed, Eyebiter, She of the Cracked Horn, and many other names perhaps only the Huraghk know. Was she a Tulaq? No, my precious, She was no daughter of Dire. She is the first mother of the Huraghk, whom the Riders call “ The Hell “. They say of her that “ Her horns point forward ‘re though she have a forked tongue. “ She is the Fourth Daughter of Creoten. And, like her Dam, she has been covered by Morphord. And some say that is why she is called “ The Mad “. Who is Morphord? Oh, child you are so young...but old enough to know, old enough to be told about HIM...about that one, and tell you I shall, very soon. Have I ever seen a Huraghk? Why, child, so many questions! I shall never get to the tale for them.... Why, yes, wheegraebe, I have seen one, some time ago, before you were born. Indeed, it was before my first heat, my first mating, when I was young, although I was not such a tiny one as you. A mighty beast, she was, this Huraghk. Red as sunset’s tide, with black stripes that crawled her belly and legs, and licked at the skin of her wings. Her two horns were as great as tree trunks to me, and aye, would still be today, great and tall as I am, and they curled about her head in two great coils. They were covered in spines like dunestrides, wicked things sharp as Rider knives, more numerous than grains of sand. And, indeed, they pointed forward. Her forehead was a wall with them, these horns She had many teeth, and they were of many sizes and shapes, and she had a thick forked tongue, marked of a hideous color. Like heat beaten clay it was, all patched and cracked looking, as though this Huraghk were a wasted thing, days wanting water. Even as I watched, she opened her mouth wide in a lazy yawn, so I could see down her throat’s livid hues, like spoiled meat running putrid on a carcass. But, I shall tell you, this was no drought hounded skeleton that stood before me, oh no. She was fine and glossy, fat even, thick as a cliff, and solid. She had not my measure in height; ahgk no, her withers just found my belly, but her brisket was deep and wide, and padded with muscle. Her pelt was thick, and ropy with long hair; even where the hair was short, the hide beneath it was rough as a shale path. And when she moved, she stank. Oh Wheegraebe, the stink! Like a brushfire’s torrid reek, her odor alone made me lower my head away and put my nose in mine own feathers, for the want of a sweeter scent. Her stench made her a hundred feet tall. Her legs were great pillars with hooves gnarled like gasbrush roots, with toothed edges gnashing the turf beneath her weight. I heard the stone sob beneath her feet’s teeth. And I shall tell you something, my little one: standing there beside her, I felt as though I was just as little as the day I was thrown. I was a Dante made of reeds and grass and she made all of stone, fire, and wind. That if I tried to stand against her, she would break me, devour me, and scatter me. And, little one, I saw why they call her Dam NakedWings, for that was just what they were, barren skin stretched over finger bones, with a few hapless pinfeathers scattered pell-mell across it, like chaff on a wet sheet. It was as if some terrible blaze had seared the feathers from her wings, leaving only this weird scarification to take their place, patches of its fell mottled and wrinkled like proud flesh, bits here and there smooth as if to mock the rest of her. Surely she could not fly, little one, for these wings did not raise from her sides....nor do I think they could. They seemed bound to her ribs with ropes of her own flesh, though they heaved out from her sides when she noticed me watching her, and I could see the space between them, pouched there as if to hold something. I asked my rider of it later, and he told me that the Huraghk carry their fawns within these pouches, and that indeed, they could not fly. It is just as well, Wheegreabe, for I do not think their own stink would be strong enough to carry them aloft! I liked not the looks of her from the start, and her odor gave me no more inclination to be near her than her appearance. She saw me, too, and when I met her gaze, she gave a loud, contemptuous snort and showed me her teeth. What did I do? Why, I did what any sane Tulaq would do, my child. I found elsewhere to look, and I did so swiftly! Nowhere can fury be found like in Huraghk, and nothing can find a bite swifter than by looking into a Huraghk’s eyes. And it would be no tain boned Tulaq that ever met them and lived. None lusts to anger more than She of the Curled Horns, and I have heard it said that one can never be quite certain of what will anger a LongTailed, and that they would have it so, that it be knowledge best not chanced. Let me tell you of Morphord’s ilk...let me tell you of his sons. Let me tell you of the one who makes the sky scream. Let me tell you of his misdeeds. Let me tell you of how Mithral, like her Mother before her, became known as “The Mad”. Morphord, The Many Shaped, The WrongFather, KinEater, Holder, Who Is the NO of Everything...He, the FirstFather, the NO’s only child. Yes, you have heard me say that name before.... It is a name all of us know before we are weaned. Wraithree, Tulaq, Bush’ree and all the rest. For it is Morphord who Wrongfathered Creoten. It was Morphord’s seed what begat the first males. And, there is Morphord’s Sin. It was Morphord what brought WrongFathering to the YES. It is said that Morphord came to the stones that Mithral dwelt upon, and it is said that He was angry. Angry at Mashig’s ilk, it seems. The Huraghk say that their people were different then. That they were slender, flyers as we, and that Mashig and all of his loins were smaller than the females. Morphord seems to have been displeased by this, or something else of them, for upon them he sent a plague before His coming. And this plague’s name was Pirohulf. Terrible things, these Pirohulves. too terrible for words to be found for them. Too much for any thing of YES to behold, surely, Whole and many, ONE and any. They say that the Pirohulves came in swarms that darkened the skies that day. That they beset themselves upon Mashig, swarmed over him like thick tar, and that they killed him. And they killed all his sons, and their grandsons and on beyond them, and that there was not one bull Huraghk breathing when they were all through. The females wept and screamed that day, for the bones were rent from their wings, and their proud plumage melted, to become the scars that lace their ribs now. And when the Pirohulves bit the Huraghk cows who carried, it is said that they threw all their sons within the days that followed, born still, with no blood within them and their bellies swollen with the birthfluids instead, as if they were trying to drink back what the NO took from them. Mithral saw this all, her children beset upon by His dragoons, and heard the skies howl. She knew from her Dam’s taletellings that the WrongFather was coming for her. She was heavy with calves at the time, all daughters, and she knew that the WrongFather would kill them were they within her, as trespassers, interlopers to his deed. So she birthed them then and there, and fed them with her milk. She hid them away from Morphord, lest the WrongFather find them. The Huraghk have tales of them, and know their names. I have heard none of them, but I do know that they are sometimes called Mithral’s Six, and that the Huraghks say that they can be found somewhere within what is left of the AH in the Slough, still fighting the NO to the last. It is said that, when Morphord came, indeed, -whenever- Morphord comes, the sky about one becomes breathtaking, something to be seen from a deep place, with the hope that you could not be in His sight. The Many Shaped makes the clouds scream, makes the very vaults of heaven wail with greif. Not many dams would venture to describe the WrongFather, or His coming, and none of them whelped underneath the open sky. Only the Dante who have allied with Riders feel cause to speak of Him. Only Keepers should have truck with him, but to be a Rubicon is to speak of him at length, to learn, to know Him. Morphord cannot be fully grasped by tongue to tell about, and that is why He is called The Many Shaped. The coming of Morphord, however is something more solid to grasp. Morphord is preceeded by a great cry. It was said that Morphord goes inside the YES’s bones to materialize, and that this bellow is from the YES in pain as He Comes. Some say that it is Morphord himself who is screaming. The Huraghk say that Morphord has been Habeg and Shag`e as well, that Morphord has lived ten lives somewhere, and somewhere is living one right now. The Bushree call Morphord the Memshagloh, the StillStorm, a terrible cataclysm that blew through the grass long, long ago. Memshagloh left nothing, a storm that boiled the flesh from, and sloughed off bone. The LongWayWalkers say that there was no wind the day of the Memshagloh. They say it was still and cool. They say that sandsquids came from the bottom of lairs to the Stillstorm’s call, and once at the surface, they died by the dozens. Indeed, I believe this is true! There are known to A.N.S.W.E.R. some ten different locations of massive skeletons worn by wind and sand lying in the desert of Nirim. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of years old. -I- have flown one of them from end to end. The Gustahl speak of a hero at courting, whose name was Death, who appeared at their doorstep and charmed all the females he walked by, and that he left with them no children, and they say that this hero was Morphord. I hear that there are many tales of him in Gustahl lore, and that these tales say nothing of any terrible disaster, nor heavenly outcry that precoursed his arrival, but then again, I know nothing of consequence about the Gustal save that they make beautiful finery, carvers that put those of the Bushree to the ground, fine as those are. It is said that a Gustahl can make smoke of stone with a chisel. I have heard that they have preference for Habeg form, and spend much of their time in it. Wraith’ree are silent about Morphord, as they are about most things. I know of noone who knows any Wraith’ree tales at all, not Tulaq, not Bushree, nor any who would speak willingly with the Despised. No thing that comes from their mouth bears the Green of Truth. Malik is the wrongfather of Arion, the Lichee’s Allfather. The Wraithree hotly debate that with us when they feel so inclined, and it said by them that it was Morphord instead who was the Lichee’s Wrongfather, pointing to the name ManyShaped as their proof. They would not have it so that their FirstFather would be the sire of That One, I shall tell you. But we Tulaq, we know this despite their protests. The Wraithree would have us to swallow their lies whole, but this is not the way of Tulaq, child, and never shall be... Whenever you see the Wraithree, know that they are liars, every one. Morphord came to Mithral that day, the Huraghk tell, as a tremendous black wolf, with wings as lightning, and teeth the stuff of poison. They say that Mithral, so cowed was she by the WrongFather’s sight, knelt before Him with her tail thrust to the side, that she could do nothing but wait for Him to advance unto her. As he had wrongfathered her Dam, so He covered her there, they say, a force that could not be refused, could not be denied, and that Mithral went mad in His colors as her Mother before her had. Worse than the NO was He, the Holder, and He swelled her with new males straight from his loins. Why? It could be that He was displeased with the brood of Mashig. Mashig’s ilk were cunning, timid things, who covered the cows by guile, smaller as they were than they, formed more from the stuff of The First than from He. For, you see, my child, Morphord is a child of the AZN, of raw legend made flesh. AZN is birthed from Zenera, which, at its most base has no care for the thing that it touches, save to change it, to move it forward though the circle, in order to fullfil The Purpose of Propogation, and that when the NO inflitrated that Purpose, the AZN begat wrong and horror instead of stability and rebirth. Morphord, as thus, is a brute It is well known that Huraghk males are now much mightier in stance than they supposedly once were. And yes...they are brutes, as well. For you see, the substance of Morphord is not guided by the Ripple of YES, but by the Push of NO. And so He had no care on what He tread. And the NO did birth itself again and again in this manner, in being and in deed, throughout the whole of Existence. It is through Morphord’s Sin that the YES’s demise will come. It is His sin that planted the NO’s get within the AZNian womb. The Pirohulves stayed on even after the Holder left, they say. That their ilk still run over the hides of the Huraghk, even today, stinging and chewing, though their bite is no longer so deadly. They still claim the lives of some of the bullcalves, when Mashig tries to come forth again through Mithral’s daughters, and these sons are dead and swollen. But this grows rarer every season, so I am told. The Huraghk dams would murder those calves born with full wings, male and female alike, for they fear The Holder, and would not see him come again.